DaVinci the diver, Mona Lisa, and other chuckles (updated 12/3)

At some point on Sunday Josiah informed me that he is an artist and he lives in a fish tank in his room. I asked him if he was an artistic fish, but he told me that he was just a person artist and when he's in his fish tank he does this [picture Josiah's cheeks puffed out as he holds his breath]. He elaborated later in the day, letting me know that there are clear windows in the tank so that we can visit him without getting wet.

This morning Josiah marched in while I was showering and announced that his name is Josiah da Vinci and that he is an artist, like Leonardo da Vinci. His "wife" is Mona Lisa (my Lisa!). There's a story behind this: Yesterday on the drive to school, Josiah asked Lisa if she would like to be in his game. She said yes, and he told her that she could be the fish tank cleaner. (Mona) Lisa does enough housework in real life, so she declined, declaring that she, too, would be an artist. :) Josiah decided that Gabriella needed a name in the game too, so she was Mary Cassatt, who loved to paint portraits of women and children together.

A bit later, as he sat at the table eating his breakfast (his much-loved banana smoothy and a bowl of cereal--or oatmeal?), Josiah looked up and asked what time school started today, or so I thought. I told him that it was Tuesday and he didn't have school and he re-iterated, "No. HOME SCHOOL!" Ah - that's up to mommy...

Lisa told me about their home school activities during a phone call later in the morning: During ART Josiah painted a picture that he liked from a Skippyjon Jones book, including a sphinx, SJ and a red car he dreamed about earlier in the week. Then they went upstairs and jumped on the beds with a silly game Josiah created to include Gabriella--he would yell some word and they would all fall down. Gabriella thought it was a hoot (gut laughter). They called this their recess break.

After recess, they worked on letter combinations using resources from Starfall.com. At 10:30, it was time for media-based learning with Word World! on PBS. After a late morning craft, they sat down to lunch and looked up the work of DaVinci and Cassatt on the computer and read more about the artists' lives. Josiah said he looked funny as an old man (looking at Davinci's self-portrait) and said he was a very clever inventor. He also thought it was sad that Gabriella (Cassatt) couldn't be a painter and a mom, but was glad that (Mona) Lisa could be one.

* Late in the summer Josiah indicated that he would like to learn things like Benjamin does because at his preschool all they do is play! Lisa told him that they could work on letters and numbers and things at home and he exclaimed in delight, "You mean I can be home schooled?!" So now, once or twice a week, Josiah and Lisa spend "home school" time on anything from art (drawing, building sculptures, etc) to working on some basic language arts skills (alphabet, letters, letter blends), to watching Word World.